Usher Gallery Rehang 2025: Stories from the Stores
What stories lay waiting to be told from our stores?
Currently on display upstairs in the Usher Gallery from July 2025 onwards.
'Stories from the Stores' takes rarely seen works, some well-known names and introduces you to some new artists. All of these are connected through four central themes: Women Artists, A Sense of Place, European Encounters, and Artists’ Communities.
The four themes emerged from extensive community outreach, revealing common threads. These two galleries are the first part of the story.
In 2024 people were invited to have their say on the artwork they would like to see displayed at their gallery, with more than 400 visitors sharing their ideas.This feedback has shaped the first phase of the gallery’s Arts Council England-funded rehang, with a brand-new exhibit, called ‘Stories from the Stores’ now open. It showcases the work of local artists inspired by Lincolnshire’s varied landscape – our dramatic coastline, wide open skies, and rolling Wolds. Works on display include Short Seaplane by John Hassall, best known locally for his iconic Jolly Fisherman, created to promote Skegness in 1908, and pieces by Peter De Wint inspired by his time in Lincoln.
Not only does the exhibit showcase prominent artists like Hassall and De Wint, the rehang recognises the work of talented but lesser-known local artists. These include another artist with a Skegness connection – Phyllis Shafto – who was born in the town and later worked as a war artist during the Second World War, before her untimely death, aged just 40. Chief among the gallery’s new acquisitions for the space is Charmaine Watkiss’ Oracle of our Forebears, a powerful drawing representing the unheard voices and stories which survived the Middle Passage (the forced voyage of enslaved people across the Atlantic).
Alongside traditional paintings and ceramics, visitors said they wanted to experience immersive, digital art. In the neighbouring Heslam Room, people will discover a selection of the collection’s abstract art, complemented by a specially commissioned animation from Midlands-based Pickle Studios.
Explore the artists and their stories; discover the connections between them. Share your thoughts before you leave on our specially designed feedback board to continue the conversation. For younger visitors there is a gallery detective pack that can be found on the pegs in the Stories from the Stores gallery. Please help yourself to the leaflets featuring five different artworks, providing further insight into the rehang. Also available in the downloads section of this page.
The Usher Gallery is on Danes Terrace, Lincoln, and is open from 10am to 4pm, Thursday to Monday. Entry is free.